Instant Care Rochdale

Instant care is a domiciliary care service located in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. The service provides personal care to people living in their own homes. At the time of the inspection the service provided care and support to two people. The service is waiting to submit a tender to join the local authorities approved provider list. If they are successful they expect to increase the number of people that they support.

We were assisted throughout the inspection by the registered manager. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are 'registered persons'. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run. The registered manager at Instant Care had been registered since June 2017.

The training and induction records demonstrated that all staff had received safeguarding training. Staff told us what it was for and what action they would take if abuse was suspected or witnessed.

The service had risk assessments in place and managed risks safely. These included moving and handling assessments, environmental risk assessments, a household safety hazard checklist and health related risk assessments.

We looked at both care files in people's homes and observed that medication was managed safely. Staff were trained and people's needs were met in line with the support agreed in their care plan. We have made a recommendation about how the provider records and lists medications in the Medication Administration Records.

The service had robust recruitment procedures in place which helped to protect people against the risk of unsuitable staff. Appropriate checks were carried out before staff began working for the service.

At the time of the inspection the service was relatively small with two people using the service. Staff told us they had enough time to carry out their roles well. This was confirmed by the people who used the service. The service had not missed any visits in the previous year.

Infection control was covered in the induction and practice was checked through spot checks carried out by senior staff. This was well managed and staff understood their responsibilities and people using the service reported good practice in this area.

Both people that we visited confirmed that they were happy with the support from the provider and that their needs were being met as agreed in the assessment and recorded in the care plan.

Good support was in place for staff. This included a four-day induction, mandatory training and regular supervision. Staff told us that it was easy to access support from the registered manager.

Support with food and drink was identified in the initial assessment and was transferred into the support plan. The support plans we looked at contained sufficient information and guidance and the people we spoke to reported being happy with the support they received.

The service was responsive to people's health needs. People gave us examples of when the service had responded to their needs.

People we spoke with told us staff were kind, caring and reliable. We observed this during our inspection and found no evidence to the contrary. The service had a positive culture which was person centred and achieved good outcomes for people using the service.

People's independence was promoted and staff were very clear that it was their role to encourage people to do as much as possible for themselves before providing an intervention.

People were routinely involved in their care and were asked for regular feedback which was recorded. The feedback that we looked at was positive.

The service met the Accessible Information Standard. They routinely asked what people's communication needs and preferences were and these were clearly recorded in the people's files that we looked at.

Access to independent advocacy was promoted and information about how to contact these services were in the two files that we looked at in people's homes.

People's care plans were individualised and person centred. People were asked about their past histories and their likes and dislikes and a date had been set to review the care. We could see that the service had also been flexible and had changed care plans when requested to do so.

The service had received no complaints. There were good systems in place to manage complaints. This included a clear policy and templates to use to record complaints.

The service had internal quality assurance systems in place to monitor performance and to drive improvement. These included spot checks and audits.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found